#34 – Agile Consultancy

Authors comment:

It’s really great to see that the values, principles and practices of the agile way of working have evolved from only focusing on software development teams into enterprises that add value through large cyber-physical systems. Furthermore, we see many disparate fields (such as HR, marketing and sales) adopting agile in order to make an even bigger difference than they used to.

This has, of course, gotten the attention of large consulting firms that, originally, used to focus only on traditional management consulting, but now offer different agile services such as coaching, transformations and courses. 

Here, we as agile practitioners, coaches and managers must find the balance between being overly sceptical and believing that these consultancy firms can actually help us. Just because these used to focus on more business school-oriented topics, it doesn’t mean that they don’t know anything useful about agile; they probably have hired some pretty good people, as their world-renowned company reputation is probably on the line, so let’s hope their consultants know the difference between ‘doing’ and ‘being’ agile. And if they don’t, it’s good that you do.